The Mystery of the Disappearing Duster
by Westron Wynde
Summary: Losing things is always hard to bear, especially when it's your most treasured item. Have thieves been at work at 221b? And why won't Holmes investigate? A happy little one-shot, silly but fun.


_**The Mystery of the Disappearing Duster**_

I have noted elsewhere in these chronicles that Mrs Hudson, the landlady of Mr Sherlock Holmes, and on occasion mine, was a most tolerant woman. That she was also long-suffering is without question; that she had a great deal of respect for her remarkable lodger – a sentiment I believe was mutual – too is beyond doubt.

It is fair to say that the worse of his faults she overlooked where a less forgiving person might not. Despite her grumbles to me when the chemical smells from the first-floor rooms became unbearable or when the midnight concerts kept her from her sleep, I fancy she harboured a certain fondness for her celebrated tenant, both for the lustre he added to her address and in her self-appointed role as guardian of the threshold, a responsibility she defended most jealously. Any client wishing to see Holmes had to first win the approval of Mrs Hudson, and anyone foolhardy enough to think to side-step the good lady was briskly reminded that here was not a woman who brooked discourteous behaviour lightly.

They had forged an understanding, Holmes and Mrs Hudson, one marked by wary regard on both sides and few upsets. Generally speaking, their relationship was harmonious, but appearances can be deceptive. An unspoken war bubbled beneath the otherwise placid surface of life at 221b, and at its heart lay the question of dust.

Quite simply, Mrs Hudson saw it as the bane of her life. Her own domain she endeavoured to keep as free of city grime as was possible. To her credit, I had never known a time when the banisters did not bear that brilliant gleam produced by endless polishing. The front step was always washed down before the postman arrived and visitors were greeted by the sight of a spotlessly clean mat in the hall. What others might see as a virtue, however, Holmes always contended was a nuisance.

I am not the tidiest man in the world, but I do have my limits. I feel that when one is able to inscribe one's name in the dust on the bookcase, then a spring clean of some description is most definitely in order. Not considering myself an expert on such things, I also contend that such important work is also better undertaken by others, in my case by the maid under the careful supervision of my wife.

Holmes, however, takes a different view. He has always maintained that dust, like mud, is most instructive. Dust on a man's hat means his wife has ceased to love him. Ingrained dust on the shoes, so he says, tells of a careless disposition produced by some malign influence. The type of dust, the smell of dust, even the colour of it is for him a fascination that quite escapes me. When he acquired a microscope, he began to study it in even greater detail and claimed he was going to write a monograph on the subject. I could only imagine what his publishers thought of that.

For myself, I tend to dismiss it as nothing more than a threat to the cleanliness of one's cuffs. I take a purely practical view of the matter. When I see dust, I tend to brush it away – or if I am not being watched, I sweep it under the carpet. I certainly do not wallow in it, as Holmes seems to do. This is where he and Mrs Hudson do not see eye to eye.

The state of his rooms is her _bête noire_. She covets the dust on his desk as one might the rarest jewel. Many times have I caught her, gazing longingly at his closed door, duster in hand. I imagine she dreams of the wonders she could work if only he would permit her the most perfunctory of cleans. That he does not only causes her resentment to simmer all the more.

By so doing, he has encouraged underhand tactics on her part, worthy of the most formidable of foes. In this, I must admit to having been a willing conspirator. Excessive dust affects my sinuses and Holmes tends to grumble unkind things if my visits are marked by constant sneezing. Between us, Mrs Hudson and I have conspired to make a tidier man of him.

Clandestine sorties were planned for when he left the house, it being my task to keep him away long enough for Mrs Hudson to work her magic. She never moves anything and is careful not to disturb his work, but the fresh smell of pine polish always betrays her presence. Holmes says nothing, although I know these surreptitious cleaning sprees of hers deeply irritate him.

He retaliates by throwing his tobacco on the floor, usually when she is collecting the breakfast things and can observe quite clearly what he is doing, and leaving the window open when the chimney sweep is at work to ensure that the soot is spread far and wide. Certainly a man has a right to his dust, but this behaviour smacks of childish petulance.

This is the game they play, Holmes and his landlady, like two warring generals, neither willing to back down and always looking to gain advantage over the other. The matter has never been addressed outright; instead this tacit war continues, as bitter as any taken to the field of battle.

So it was that when we returned from a brief stay in Cornwall in the spring of 1889, I had every expectation of finding that Mrs Hudson had taken the opportunity of Holmes's absence to effect a thorough clean of the house. He was in good humour, having successfully concluded the shocking business of the Nude Cyclist of Polperro, a retelling of which would, I fear, be neither edifying nor advisable for readers of a nervous disposition.

All the way home he had talked volubly and at length about a quick succession of topics – on the references to Humanism in the music of Josquin, medieval astrology, the philosophy of Spinoza and the forthcoming Paris Exhibition. I struggled to keep apace with his enthusiasm and finally gave up the attempt, revelling instead in his bright humour that I knew from experience would evaporate once he caught the whiff of beeswax polish and saw a shine on the floorboards.

I was braced for confrontation as our cab came to a halt outside the door. Instead I found Mrs Hudson in a state of great agitation.

"Oh, Mr Holmes," she cried, hurrying out to meet us before we had a chance to set foot inside. "There have been burglars here in your absence, sir. We have been robbed and my poor home invaded!"

Whilst Holmes accepted this news with equanimity, I was deeply concerned.

"What was taken?" I asked. "Did they go upstairs?"

"I'm not sure," said she. "It all happened so fast, sir. One minute I was seeing Mr Holmes off to the station to meet you, Doctor, and the next…" Her bottom lip trembled. "I didn't turn my back for more than half a minute, I'm sure of it."

"That's all these criminals need, Mrs Hudson," I reassured her. "It's no fault of yours."

"'Dead lurkers'," said Holmes, absently.

"What?"

"Opportunist thieves who stole coats and umbrellas from passages when doors were left open. That was the 'official' term for them some years back." His eyes had taken on that languid look that told me his thoughts were disengaged from the matter at hand. "I've often wondered," he went on, "whether such people were exclusive in their 'trade'. What if one tired of stealing umbrellas and took to stealing clean clothes from washing lines instead? Would the other 'snow gatherers' as they were called object to the competition? Could one be both at the same time?"

"Holmes, is this entirely relevant?" I protested. "Mrs Hudson has had a most distressing experience."

"That I do not deny, but I am bound to say it was most careless of you, Mrs Hudson, to leave the door unattended. And may I say, most unlike you."

"I'm thoroughly ashamed of myself," said the poor woman, bitterly wringing her hands, "and I don't mind admitting it. I've never had so much as bootlace stolen from my hall before."

"What did they take?" I asked.

"That's the thing of it, Doctor. They took my best feather duster and the half tin of Brightwell's Floor Polish. I don't understand it at all."

"Pointless," I agreed. "They could make little profit from your duster, Mrs Hudson."

"My _best_ duster, sir. I've had that same one for thirty-six years. A faithful friend that's been, and only cost me a few pennies in having to replace the handle and the feathers."

"How then can it be the same duster?" Holmes queried. "By your own admission, if both handle and feathers are replacements—"

"Most curious," I said, interrupting him before he confused the issue further. "What do you make of it, Holmes? Why would thieves steal such trivial items?"

"Perhaps they wanted to clean their homes?"

I shot him a look of reproof. "Sounds like a diversionary tactic to me. I think we should check upstairs, in case there was an ulterior motive to this theft. It could be that they were attempting to gain access to your files, Holmes."

Mrs Hudson snorted. "It would take them longer than a minute to find what they were looking for up there, I'll wager."

Upstairs, my worst fears were realised. Papers were strewn across the floor, every drawer was pulled open, and books taken from the shelves had been flung around in wild abandon.

"Dear heavens," I murmured. "You've been burgled."

"Don't be absurd, Watson," said Holmes, placing his hat, cane and bag on the table. "This is exactly how I left it. Good, I see that nothing has been disturbed."

Stepping deftly across the litter, he proceeded to locate and charge his pipe, and then, having swept an assortment of newspaper cuttings from his fireside chair, settled down with a sigh of satisfaction. His behaviour puzzled me and I was most exasperated that he should dismiss what to me seemed a most serious matter so lightly.

"Aren't you in the least concerned?" I asked.

He shook his head.

"Holmes, thieves do not steal items of little value unless they have a good reason."

"Then what do you suggest, Watson? That we call upon the massed ranks of the Metropolitan Police and send them out in search of a purloined duster? I dare say they would find that most amusing at Scotland Yard."

"How many times have you said in the past that the most trifling incident may have the most sinister of implications?"

"I stand by that claim."

"Then why are you dismissing this theft out of hand?"

He gazed at me inquiringly through blue-grey smoke rings as they chased each other up to the ceiling. I gathered that he wished me to make up my own mind about the matter, which could only mean that he had himself arrived at a logical answer.

"You know what occurred here, don't you?" I said.

"Quite so."

"Are you going to share this information with me?"

He smiled and closed his eyes. "I had hoped you would arrive at your own conclusion. You know my methods."

"Applying them, however, is another matter. Very well. Whoever stole these items had a good reason for doing so."

"Indeed, the very best."

"And you would agree that the financial gain from dusters and floor polish is very little. Therefore the motive must be a personal one, calculated to disturb Mrs Hudson and inconvenience her. Ah, I have it! Mrs James, two doors along, is the culprit. She never forgave Mrs Hudson for taking in that ginger kitten. She always said that cat ate her canary."

If I spoke with some authority, it was because I was pleased with what seemed to me a satisfactory explanation. Holmes, however, slowly opened his eyes and favoured me with a look of pity.

"My dear fellow, as amusing as it is listening to you casting Mrs James in the role of villain, I feel it is my duty to remind you that the lady in question is over seventy and walks with the aid of two sticks. Is this the opportunist thief who dashed in when Mrs Hudson's back was turned but for a minute? No, Watson, it will not do."

I was a little offended by this curt dismissal of my efforts. "She has her nephew staying with her at present."

"This is the same nephew who not a month ago asked you to keep an eye on his aunt because he thought she was going peculiar? You think he would accede to her wishes in this matter?"

"Yes, if he thought to humour her."

Holmes rose with a sigh and knocked the spent ash from his pipe into the grate. "Watson, I have done you an injustice. In watering the arid desert of your imagination, I have encouraged excessive bloom. I am bound to tell you that you have wandered in the realms of fantasy, my dear fellow, and thoroughly confused the issue with talk of elderly ladies, nephews and dead canaries. Simplify, simplify, to quote Thoreau's exhortation."

"An opportunist thief then?"

He shook his head sharply. "Your first conclusion was erroneous in assuming that a theft had taken place."

"You mean to say that Mrs Hudson has simply misplaced her duster and polish?"

"Or it has been borrowed."

"Borrowed by whom?"

"By one of the principal players in this petty drama."

A startling thought now occurred to me. "Holmes, you didn't!"

He wandered across to the table and extracted from his bag a moth-eaten feathered item that had once been its owner's pride and joy. "I'm afraid I did," said he, adding the missing tin of polish to the collection of incriminating evidence. "I happened to see these items as I was leaving and the temptation was too great. I know what transpires here in my absence. I am also fully aware that you, who call yourself my friend, happily collude with my landlady against me."

"I do not," I protested.

"Yes, you do. You _collude_, Watson. Do not attempt to deny it. You should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself."

"Well, what if I do? Look at the state of this place. However do you find anything in this confusion?"

"What you call confusion I call organisation. I know exactly where everything is. And that dust, which you both find most objectionable, is for me a somewhat primitive attempt at security. I have no doubt that there are several prominent people in London at this very moment who would dearly wish to gain access to my files. The day I find the dust in my rooms disturbed by hands other than my own, then I shall know that I have cause to worry. That is why I cannot allow Mrs Hudson a free rein in here."

"But leaving her to think she had been robbed. Holmes, that is most ungallant of you."

"I am not so unchivalrous an opponent. I fully intend to return this to her, albeit indirectly."

"You will return it to her now with a full apology and put her mind at rest." I opened the door and called down to her. "Mrs Hudson, would you mind coming up here for a moment?"

Holmes grabbed me by the arm and hauled me back inside. "Have you lost your senses? An apology – why it is tantamount to surrender! I shall never know a moment's peace if I allow you to grant Mrs Hudson this unreasonable hold over me. You forget, the opening salvo in this conflict was not mine. As for Mrs Hudson's peace of mind, her good sense should have told that thieves do not waste their time on trivial items such as these."

"Very well. I shall her that I found the lost items upstairs where she had left them."

"My dear fellow, despite your experience of matrimony, you are still woefully ignorant of the minds of women. Mrs Hudson will not for one moment believe this tale you intend to spin. She will know."

"Perhaps so, but my way allows you both to retain face. And then you will have to come to an understanding about this situation. This cannot continue."

Mrs Hudson chose that moment to appear. Her eye fell upon the missing articles in an instant and, throughout my brief invention of how I found them in my old room upstairs, I could not fail to notice that her gaze was fixed accusingly on Holmes.

"Well, I've got them back," said she, her face, if not her tone, suggesting that she was thoroughly unconvinced by my tale, "so we'll say no more about it, although it seems a mighty strange thing to me how they could have got upstairs, Doctor, when I'm sure I had them in my little basket by the front door."

"You must have been mistaken," said Holmes, rubbing his hands as if pleased to be free of the matter. "You have your feather duster, Mrs Hudson, I have another case that demands my attention and Watson must be getting home to his wife. All's well that ends well. What a very satisfactory day."

I cleared my throat. Holmes's face fell. He may have avoided the apology, but I was determinded to have this resolved one way or another.

"Mrs Hudson," said he in the slow measured tones of a condemned man facing his executioner, "it has been brought to my attention that you have been somewhat slack in your housekeeping regarding the state of this room."

"Slack, sir? If I have, it is because you will not allow me access, and in my own house, mark you!"

At least Holmes had the decency to look a little abashed. "Yes, I'm afraid I've been busy of late. The disturbance would have been... difficult. All the same, I feel that a flick round the shelves with that duster of yours would not go amiss. I believe I could tolerate the occasional intrusion. Oh, say, once a year."

"Is that what you say?" said she, her mouth pursed into a wrinkle of displeasure. "The dust will be a foot high if we leave it that long. No, sir, it will have to be every week or not at all. Those are my terms."

"Mrs Hudson, that is–"

I gave a warning cough to remind him of his obligations.

"Quite acceptable," he capitulated with an annoyed glance in my direction.

"I'm glad to hear it, Mr Holmes," said she. "You'll soon see the benefit, sir. And you needn't worry, I won't touch any of your things... or hide them, unlike some people I could mention."

Holmes scowled.

"Well, there's so much to do, I'm sure I don't know where to begin," said she with relish. "Why don't you make a start Mr Holmes by picking up all your papers? I wouldn't want to be accused of disturbing anything."

She left, muttering to herself about cleaning fluids and wash clothes. Holmes gazed at the assorted litter around him and, with a sigh of resignation, dropped to his knees.

"You do realise," said he when I joined him on all fours to help gather up the mess, "that my system of security has been compromised by this absurd weekly ritual to which I have been forced to submit. I blame you for this, Watson."

"Which would you prefer – a little inconvenience now or a great deal later when you have to find new lodgings?"

"It is a sad thing when a man is forced to choose between the state of his shelves and his continued residence at his favoured address. This day has witnessed the crumbling of the last great male bastion – a man's right to his dust!"

"Holmes, you exaggerate."

"Do I? No, I fear it is a slippery slope all the way from here to domesticity. This is only the beginning. Mark my words, Watson, next there will be talk of 'little jobs to do around the house', closely followed by 'if you aren't doing anything, Mr Holmes, perhaps you could get those curtains down'. You see before you a doomed man at the mercy of what promises to be 'cruel and unusual punishments'."

I laughed at his words. "Do you mean to say me that you need rescuing?"

"Very much so. What do you suggest?"

"Lunch followed by a concert?"

"Oh, my dear fellow, do you have the time? Have I not kept you from your home for long enough?

"I'm sure Mary will understand when I tell her it is a mission of mercy."

"There is no cause worthier," said Holmes, rising to his feet and secreting a pile of papers beneath the cushion of the sofa. "Come, Watson, it shall be my treat. If one's domestic routine is to be upset, it is best done on a full stomach. After all, does not the condemned man get to eat a hearty supper?"

As we were about to leave, Mrs Hudson entered, bearing a bucket and mop.

"Oh, are you going out, sir?" said she. "I had hoped if you were staying, you could get those curtains down for me."

Holmes shot me a conspiratorial smile. "Alas, but I fear I must forgo that particular avenue of pleasure. I'm afraid that less noble duties bear upon us today, Mrs Hudson, which I expect will keep us away for most of the afternoon, by which time I trust you will be finished."

"I'm not sure about that, Mr Holmes. There's enough work here for two hands, let alone one."

"You do not give yourself enough credit. Why, you have worked wonders in the past with less time than this."

"Put like that, sir, I'll do my best."

"Of course you will. Come, Watson, let us help this dear lady in her endeavours by removing ourselves from the premises and thus by our absence speed her labours to completion. Good day, Mrs Hudson. As for the task that lies ahead, I wish you well of it, but I fear to stay would be more than I can bear. Parting, even from one's carefully cultivated dust, truly is such sweet sorrow."

**The End **

* * *

_**Sherlock Holmes, Dr Watson and Mrs Hudson are the timeless creations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Characters and incidents mentioned in this work are entirely fictitious. This work of fan fiction has not been created for profit nor authorised by any official body.**_


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